Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 15 May 2025 to Question 50987 on Cheetahs: Hunting, how species of conservation concern will be determined.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Species of conservation concern is determined in the criteria set out under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). CITES lists species in its Appendices according to the level of threat international trade has on their conservation status, with Appendix I being the most threatened species.
A species may be listed in CITES Appendix I and II if it meets certain criteria, such as:
- a small or declining wild population,
- high vulnerability to external factors,
- fragmented population..
This criteria is set out in CITES Resolution Conf. 9.24 (Rev. CoP17).
In the UK, CITES is implemented by the Wildlife Trade Regulations (WTRs), with Annexes A and B of the WTRs broadly corresponding to CITES Appendices I and II.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 6 June 2025 to Question 55512 on Flood Control: Owner Occupation, if he will direct the Environment Agency to hold a community engagement event on flood risk in Mid Bedfordshire constituency.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since the flooding across Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire in Autumn last year, the Environment Agency (EA) has hosted community events alongside other partner agencies. These were well received and strengthened local engagement around flood risk.
In the Mid Bedfordshire constituency, the risk of flooding is predominantly from surface water or watercourses that are the responsibility of Local Authorities or Internal Drainage Boards, who would be better placed to take a lead role on community engagement around these sources of flooding.
The EA is however working closely with all Flood Risk Management Authority partners to ensure communities are prepared and resilient to all sources of flood risk. They will support any community engagement events led by others wherever possible.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 6 June 2025 to Question 55512 on Flood Control: Owner Occupation, how much funding (a) his Department and (b) the Environment Agency have allocated for promoting awareness of flood risk in the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Raising awareness of flood and coastal erosion risk is one of the Environment Agency’s (EA) key priorities and supports actions set out in the National FCERM Strategy.
Flood resilience engagement advisors lead the EA’s work with communities at risk of flooding at the local level. Funding for these activities comes from resource allocations. There is no national database tracking the money specifically allocated to these activities as they often form part of a larger project or programme of work.
Flood Action Week is the EA’s annual public action week, raising awareness amongst the public of their flood risk, the actions they should take, and the work the EA does to prepare and respond during a flood. Flood Action Week 2025 is planned for October and will focus on raising awareness amongst communities of our flood warning service and what to do when they receive a warning, and about property flood resilience measures.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's press release published on 22 May 2025 entitled Teachers to benefit from pay boost, what estimate she has made of the increase in employers’ National Insurance costs for schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Schools are receiving £615 million to support them with the costs of the 2025 pay awards, over and above the funding already being provided to schools in financial year 2025/26. The increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) costs were considered when calculating this additional funding.
The department has asked that schools fund, on average, the first 1% of the 2025 pay awards. The impact of this will vary for individual schools based on their circumstances, as they have autonomy over how they use their funding, including any decisions on staffing.
Schools in Central Bedfordshire are receiving £4 million to support them with their NICs costs; we will publish allocations for the 2025 pay grant in the autumn. From 2026/27, funding in respect of both NICs costs, and the 2025 pay awards, will be incorporated into schools’ core budgets through the national funding formula.
The department provides a suite of free tools, guidance and support, developed in partnership with the sector, to help schools better manage their spending. Schools are already making savings and bringing core operating costs down: for example, the 400 schools who participated in the department’s new energy for schools pilot will save 36% on average compared to their previous contracts, which will free up vital funding to deliver for children and young people. We are also making plans to secure better banking solutions for schools, getting them better returns on their cash balances.
Additionally, all schools can access services such as the get help buying for schools service to get best value when procuring goods and our teaching vacancies service to save recruitment costs. Since, workforce deployment is the biggest component of school budgets, we will support schools to benefit fully from the tools we offer to benchmark and integrate resourcing and curriculum planning, such as the financial benchmarking and insights tool. We will also introduce a new toolkit to support schools to adopt evidence-based deployment models. This will focus on data that helps schools identify areas for improvement and support to learn from best practice peers who are delivering strong outcomes for pupils with an efficient deployment model.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's press release published on 22 May 2025 entitled Teachers to benefit from pay boost, if she will make an estimate of the change in the (a) employers’ National Insurance and (b) salary costs for schools in Bedfordshire constituency between (i) 2024-25 and (ii) 2025-26.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Schools are receiving £615 million to support them with the costs of the 2025 pay awards, over and above the funding already being provided to schools in financial year 2025/26. The increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) costs were considered when calculating this additional funding.
The department has asked that schools fund, on average, the first 1% of the 2025 pay awards. The impact of this will vary for individual schools based on their circumstances, as they have autonomy over how they use their funding, including any decisions on staffing.
Schools in Central Bedfordshire are receiving £4 million to support them with their NICs costs; we will publish allocations for the 2025 pay grant in the autumn. From 2026/27, funding in respect of both NICs costs, and the 2025 pay awards, will be incorporated into schools’ core budgets through the national funding formula.
The department provides a suite of free tools, guidance and support, developed in partnership with the sector, to help schools better manage their spending. Schools are already making savings and bringing core operating costs down: for example, the 400 schools who participated in the department’s new energy for schools pilot will save 36% on average compared to their previous contracts, which will free up vital funding to deliver for children and young people. We are also making plans to secure better banking solutions for schools, getting them better returns on their cash balances.
Additionally, all schools can access services such as the get help buying for schools service to get best value when procuring goods and our teaching vacancies service to save recruitment costs. Since, workforce deployment is the biggest component of school budgets, we will support schools to benefit fully from the tools we offer to benchmark and integrate resourcing and curriculum planning, such as the financial benchmarking and insights tool. We will also introduce a new toolkit to support schools to adopt evidence-based deployment models. This will focus on data that helps schools identify areas for improvement and support to learn from best practice peers who are delivering strong outcomes for pupils with an efficient deployment model.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's press release published on 22 May 2025 entitled Teachers to benefit from pay boost, what guidance she has issued to schools on steps to make savings through increased productivity.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Schools are receiving £615 million to support them with the costs of the 2025 pay awards, over and above the funding already being provided to schools in financial year 2025/26. The increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) costs were considered when calculating this additional funding.
The department has asked that schools fund, on average, the first 1% of the 2025 pay awards. The impact of this will vary for individual schools based on their circumstances, as they have autonomy over how they use their funding, including any decisions on staffing.
Schools in Central Bedfordshire are receiving £4 million to support them with their NICs costs; we will publish allocations for the 2025 pay grant in the autumn. From 2026/27, funding in respect of both NICs costs, and the 2025 pay awards, will be incorporated into schools’ core budgets through the national funding formula.
The department provides a suite of free tools, guidance and support, developed in partnership with the sector, to help schools better manage their spending. Schools are already making savings and bringing core operating costs down: for example, the 400 schools who participated in the department’s new energy for schools pilot will save 36% on average compared to their previous contracts, which will free up vital funding to deliver for children and young people. We are also making plans to secure better banking solutions for schools, getting them better returns on their cash balances.
Additionally, all schools can access services such as the get help buying for schools service to get best value when procuring goods and our teaching vacancies service to save recruitment costs. Since, workforce deployment is the biggest component of school budgets, we will support schools to benefit fully from the tools we offer to benchmark and integrate resourcing and curriculum planning, such as the financial benchmarking and insights tool. We will also introduce a new toolkit to support schools to adopt evidence-based deployment models. This will focus on data that helps schools identify areas for improvement and support to learn from best practice peers who are delivering strong outcomes for pupils with an efficient deployment model.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the level of UK investment generated by the GREAT campaign since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
I refer the hon. member to the PQ 63750.
The campaign uses a comprehensive evaluation framework with timeframes for results tailored to each participating organisation's activities. Evaluation results for the GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland Campaign have not yet been finalised for financial year 2024/25.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many (a) unauthorised and (b) sickness absences there were in the civil service in each of the last five years.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Sickness absence data for the Civil Service is published annually, and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sickness-absence.
Individual departments are responsible for managing their workforces, including any instances of unauthorised absence. This information is not held centrally by the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the press release by the United Nations Human Rights Office entitled Agreement between Mauritius and the UK fails to guarantee rights of Chagossians say UN experts, published on 10 June 2025.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The negotiations were between the UK and Mauritius with our priority being to secure the full operation of the base on Diego Garcia, and the deal has been welcomed by international organisations including the UN Secretary General, African Union and Commonwealth. The UN Special Procedures are Independent Experts. Their views are not binding and do not represent the views of the UN system as a whole. We recognise the importance of the islands to Chagossians and have worked to ensure the agreement reflects this. We will increase our support to Chagossians, including through: the establishment of a £40 million fund to benefit Chagossians; the ability Mauritius will have, for the first time, to resettle the islands other than Diego Garcia; and work with Mauritius to start a new programme of visits for Chagossians to the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia. We have also maintained the current route to British citizenship for Chagossians, so all Chagossians will remain eligible and free to make their home in the UK. The UK Government regularly engages Chagossian groups and representatives at both official and Ministerial levels and a new 'Contact Group' will facilitate dialogue between the Chagossian community and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on future programmes.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the waste hierarchy to encourage councils to assign more black bin waste to the production of sustainable aviation fuels.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Falkirk on 8 May 2025 to Question 49143.